


Absolution: A Diablo III Short Story

by panda_reads



Series: Westmarch Quartet [1]
Category: Diablo (Video Game), Diablo III
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Relationship, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 21:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15033971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panda_reads/pseuds/panda_reads
Summary: He sits atop the pillar, listening to their conversation. They are not shy about their feelings, none of his friends are – and what an odd thing, to have friends, at all, before Tyrael, before following the Fallen Star, all he’d known was his scattered Order, and demon hunters are not prone to friendships. Friendships lead to distractions; distractions lead to mistakes; mistakes are what led everyone to this point to begin with.





	Absolution: A Diablo III Short Story

“Absolution: A Diablo III Short Story”

 

_Diablo III; Diablo III: Reaper of Souls and all related characters and locations are the property of Blizzard. This is a fan-written fiction._

* * *

 

absolution (noun): formal release from guilt, obligation, or punishment

 

* * *

Eirena takes her time studying her companion. It is not often that she accompanies the hunter, but she finds his presence assuring, if still distant. He is not talkative, not like Lyndon and Kormac are, though the thief is constantly babbling about anything and everything that catches his fancy, and the templar is grim and gruff, allowing the occasional fumbling admission of humanity. Eirena appreciates their company, but the hunter is different. He rarely speaks, and even today, his invitation to her consisted of a hand gesture and a jerk of his head, before he began walking out of the camp.

Kormac snorts. “It wouldn’t kill him to _say_ something every once and again.”

“What? You suspect he’ll suddenly start telling you all his dark secrets?” Lyndon has his own share of secrets, but Eirena has caught him staring at the hunter more often than not.

“Why do you look at him like that?” she asks.

“I’m trying to figure out where he’s ticklish, because gods know that man could use a laugh.”

Eirena stares.

“I’m not serious,” Lyndon says, folding his arms, even as an impish grin crosses his face. “Though I wouldn’t mind getting him drunk. I imagine he’s right entertaining in that state. Kormac! What do you say? Want to help me get the prickly bastard drunk?”

Kormac actually looks like he’s contemplating the idea.

Eirena is about to scold them both when they hear the soft clearing of a throat. The hunter is standing there, hooded, neutral expression, watching Eirena. He bobs his head, indicating that he is likely to leave without her if she does not go with him now, and she looks back at her other companions. “You should not tease him,” she says. “I think he hears all you say.”

“The blighter _could_ smile once in a while,” Lyndon grumbles. “Eirena, tell you what, you watch him on this little adventure you’re taking, and you let us know if he cracks a smile, a joke, or reveals his ultimate plan to you. of the three of us, he’ll probably talk to you the most.”

The enchantress disagrees. “You could go in my place.”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. I’m liable to be distracted.”

“By gold?”

“Ah, sure. Yes, yes, let’s say gold. Yes. That.”

Eirena suspects she’s caught the thief in a thought he should not be entertaining. His face is flushed scarlet.

Kormac catches her attention. “Our friend’s about outside the camp,” he tells her. “You should probably be off.”

 

* * *

 

They wander for an hour or so, the hunter never speaking, only killing the occasional monster that presents itself. Most give them a wide berth. Eirena wonders if the monsters know what her friend is and keep their distance on account of his profession. She watches him dispatch a particularly unpleasant creature – it has the face of a bat and the limbs and body of a large man, its rotted skin unleashing a putrid stench that catches the enchantress off guard – and when it is over, he stands over the kill, places one final crossbow bolt in its head.

Eirena watches him, hoping to see some grim sign of satisfaction, but instead, he continues.

“You are very quiet,” the enchantress says. The hunter arches an eyebrow. “The others talk about you back at the camp,” she continues. “I’m not sure if it’s true, but they think you never smile.”

The hunter grunts, tugs his hood farther over his eyes, shadowing his entire face. Only the white glow of his eyes stands out in the dark.

“They _do_ talk about you,” Eirena says, but it sounds like an apology. “I think they are simply curious. You are not open about yourself, you don’t say what you’re thinking.”

“Does it matter?” His voice is soft, the question almost a statement of how little he cares what others think of him.

She wonders if all demon hunters are like this, hiding their feelings, drawing masks over their faces, their cloaks like shadow embracing their bodies.

“It might,” she says. “I suspect that they simply want to know more about you.”

“There are demons to kill. What else is worth knowing?”

She wonders. He is so grim. Eirena follows him through a winding path, the dead tree limbs clawing at his cloak, but he moves like smoke and shadow, the darkness is a kindred spirit, the silence a second skin.

Eirena is uncomfortable in the silence. She wishes she’d insisted Lyndon or Kormac follow the hunter in her place. Instead, she follows.

 

* * *

 

Hours pass. They walk, they explore, they kill nightmarish creatures. He never utters a word. Eirena is weary of the silence. As they complete their exploration, arriving at the camp, she asks him why he refuses to join the others at the campfire. “You are always alone. It would put them at ease.”

“Kormac is a templar. Lyndon is a thief. None of you are weak. Why would my presence put any of you ‘at ease?’”

She sighs. It seems he’s taken her words as an insult, a suggestion that he is not safe.

“We have journeyed far together,” she tells him. “It is a long time since we met in Caldeum, and it is even longer since you started your hunt for Tyrael in Tristram. In all that time, you’ve been alone with your thoughts and what you’ve seen. You share nothing of yourself, and yet you’ve given everything to fight the demons we face.”

She waits, hoping for a reaction. “I consider you a friend,” she adds. “They feel the same. I do not have much experience with friendship, but I do not think it means that you are better off alone.”

The hunter peers at her from beneath his hood, his white stare almost curious in the squint of his eyes.

“It is something to consider,” she says, and turns away from him.

“Friends are valuable,” the hunter says. “They are also vulnerabilities.”

“You have said that none of us are weak,” she reminds him.

“You are not vulnerable,” he replies, his voice soft. “But you’ve all left cracks in my armor.” He wanders away from her, to a secluded area of the camp. She watches him crawl to a perch atop a pillar, secure in the darkness, and soon all she can see are the whites of his eyes.

 

* * *

 

“Cracks in his armor?” Lyndon practically howls the phrase. “What in all the hells does _that_ mean?”

“You asked me to talk with him,” Eirena protests. “I am telling you what he said.”

“Sounds like he’s spouting weak poetry at you. ‘At ease’, my ass. That man couldn’t relax if you put him in a hot bath and told him to sit still.”

“Poetry and a bath, Lydon? At this rate, you’d better hurry up and seduce him,” Kormac says dryly.

Lyndon turns to look at the Templar, an almost perverse grin on his face. “Is that _humor_ I detect? No, no, it’s not humor, it’s _wit._ Gods, Kormac, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Kormac clears his throat, turns to Eirena. “He spoke to you. That is something.”

She crosses her arms. “You don’t trust him.”

Kormac looks insulted. “I trust him! He saved the world. _Twice._ Of course, I trust him! Granted, monsters still roam the land, but, but—“

“Do _you_ trust him?” Eirena asks Lyndon.

The thief rolls his eyes and refuses to answer her.

“You asked me to speak with him,” she says curtly. “I am now wondering why I bothered to tell you anything.” She marches away from the fire.

 

* * *

 

He sits atop the pillar, listening to their conversation. They are not shy about their feelings, none of his friends are – and what an odd thing, to have friends, at all, before Tyrael, before following the Fallen Star, all he’d known was his scattered Order, and demon hunters are not prone to friendships. Friendships lead to distractions; distractions lead to mistakes; mistakes are what led everyone to this point to begin with.

He marvels at it. He has walked the Halls of Heaven, crossed through Pandemonium, faced the ghost of his long-dead sister, and still, he wonders what he has accomplished. Leah and Cain are still dead; The Witch is dead (he will not name her; to give her a name is to pretend she was anything other than an enemy from the beginning); and Tyrael is Tyrael, a mortal angel conducting his politics from the world below, while his angelic brethren argue.

The hunter sinks deeper into his cloak. He sings softly to himself, an old rhyme taught by his first teacher, a stoic old man with a voice that rivaled the purity of the songs he’d heard in Heaven.

_“Silent, silent, stay awake / the world’s alive before daybreak / a-flitting goes the owl at night / but watchful is the ghost alight / silent, silent, stay awake / the world’s alive before daybreak / the gods asleep while angels sing / but never forget a demon made king / silent, silent, stay awake / the world’s alive before daybreak / strike swift and true and fierce and fast / but remember this when you breathe your last / when monster strikes and chaos reigns / then sleep, my child, ever still again.”_

_What would you say to this new world, Fallon?_ he wonders, humming the song’s old tune. He imagines Fallon scorning the world, rolling his eyes at its foolishness. _“Angels are demons un-fallen,”_ he’d said, ages and ages ago, when the hunter was younger, yet old enough not to believe in such tales of kind spirits tied to the gods.

_I have seen the Lord of Terror made flesh, Fallon. I have seen him and his kin, and I have battled a witch who sacrificed two of the only good people I’ve ever known for reasons I still do not understand. I have fought Belial, and Magda; Diablo lies dead at my hands, Adria followed him._

_Leah’s blood is on my hands, and I do not think it will ever come off._

He remembers the girl’s face in those final terrifying moments before the Lord of Terror took her. He remembers hollowness in his own soul, because her face had so resembled Halissa’s, all those years ago, yet while Halissa existed within Pandemonium, Leah was gone forever.

Shen had scolded him for thinking Leah’s spirit so weak, but it was not weakness the hunter saw in Leah: he saw power, strength, true and noble intention, all those qualities he admired. Yet admiration was not enough; encouraging her to learn how to focus her power was not enough; none of it had been enough, and now, even with the Reaper dead, Leah was still gone.

_It won’t come off,_ the hunter muses, looking at his hands. _I’m sorry. You’d have made a fine inn-keeper._

He looks over the camp.

_All of you looking at me. You see Nephalem. You see nothing else._

_I hunt demons. I hunt your nightmares._

He feels a flash of anger as he recalls Tyrael’s suspicious face following Malthael’s defeat. _I_ am  _your nightmare, am I not, angel? A man who’s slain your kin._

He sighs, frustrated. _I don’t know what I am anymore._

His eyes roam outside of the camp’s walls.

_Would any of you notice if I left? If I slipped away before you could stop me? Would you hunt me down?_

He drifts to the stronghold, where Tyrael and the youthful Horadrim dwell.

_You would hunt me,_ he thinks. _You, of all of them, you would hunt me to my last breath_.

He descends the pillar, is surprised to find Eirena at the bottom.

“I heard you singing,” she says.

He raises an eyebrow.

“I’ve never heard that song. It’s beautiful.”

“A hunter’s lullaby,” he says.

“It is still lovely.”

“What do you want?” He tries to make the words sound gentler than he feels.

Eirena looks at him. “The others, they asked me to tell them about you. I told them what I could, from our walk. I…” She hesitates. “I told them what I could,” she repeats.

He says nothing.

“You said that we are not weak, but that we’ve made you vulnerable. We’ve left ‘cracks in your armor.’ Lyndon did not believe me.”

“He wouldn’t,” the hunter says.

Eirena folds her hands around her staff. “I cannot tell what goes on behind your eyes. You hide your secrets well, but there must be a point when you can trust us to not share them. You can be… yourself in our presence.”

“Am I not myself?”

“I… do not know,” she admits. “All I have known of you is a hunter. How can I know if this is your true self or not?”

She has a point. He cannot recall a time before he hunted. He does not know if his sister is a half-remembered dream, some long ago story turned to fantasy in his mind.

“Am I not myself?” he asks again, and he does not look at Eirena.

She is silent.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Am I myself or am I some half-imagined thing given flesh. I don’t truly know.” He looks at her. “You are who you say you are. I do not believe Kormac is capable of lying. Lyndon is… Lyndon.”

“He seems strange in your presence.”

The hunter huffs a laugh. “Yes. Yes, he does.”

“I do not understand why.”

“He is a thief; he takes what he wants, follows it to its end.”

“You seem very sure of that.”

The hunter shrugs. “He would be disappointed, I think, if he pursued this to an ending.”

“Why?” She is so innocent, he thinks.

_He would be disappointed in what he finds._

He exhales heavily. “I am… not what he wants. If he looked closely, he would see that I am not…” He trails off.

“Not what?”

He shakes his head. “I do not know.”

"Do you doubt yourself?” she asks.

“Have you ever doubted?”

“Only after Leah was… taken. I wondered what the purpose of my power was if not to save people like her. When we defeated Diablo, when you killed Malthael, that confirmed to me that we are doing the right thing. We are doing what we are meant to do.”

“What we are meant to do,” he echoes, and looks out, past Westmarch, into the dreary swamps and endless forests. “We’ve come so far, but we’ve left much behind. We’ve lost people, friends, our illusions, our small beliefs. We’ve abandoned small mercies, and we expect to do it.” His voice drops. “I will take more lives than I spare. I think, eventually, I will forget friend from foe, and I will ignore all but the drive to kill demons. I will think of nothing but duty and focus.”

He looks at Eirena, and her expression is filled with remorse. “I do not know who I am,” he admits. “I am lost in some dream of possibility – I could live and travel among friends, learn to work with others, learn to grieve and let go – but I know that I must wake soon, because that possibility is not me.”

“If you do not know yourself, how can you know that the possibility is not you?”

“I know the hunter,” he says. “I know his ways, his actions, his possibilities. The ways of a man who also hunts? No. No, that is something I do not know.”

He frowns when Eirena reaches out and takes his hand.

“What are you doing?”

She tugs his glove free, but he yanks his hand away before she can completely remove it.

“What are you _doing_?” he repeats, working the glove back into place.

“’A half-imagined thing made flesh,’” she echoes. “You are human, if you do not remember it.”

“ _Nephalem,_ ” he reminds her.

“It is a word,” she says.

“It is _possibility_ ,” he says. “It is a memory, a long-dead race, one that holds no meaning for the world now.”

“You are Nephalem,” she says. “My friend, you are a man, a hunter, and also Nephalem. These things cannot be ignored. They are not to be ignored. They are what make you who you are.”

He pauses, looks at his hands. “You’ve no idea the things I’ve done in my life,” he says, but there is no pride in his voice. “The things I’ve done, the monsters I’ve slain, and after a long while, the monsters no longer resemble monsters, they are simply points of light, and they must be removed. The darkness prevails, and yet I fight against that same darkness. I snuff out lights. I extinguish candles. I revel in darkness.” He looks at her, the whites of his eyes glowing in the shadows of his hood. “I am lost in the dark,” he says. “I don’t know how to walk outside of it.”

“I am your friend,” she insists. “Kormac and Lyndon, they are your friends. We trust you, we are your allies. We would never turn on you.”

“I know that,” he says, his voice shaking. “The _hunter_ doesn’t believe it, though.”

“You are the same.”

“I was like you once,” he says. “I believed in innocence. I believed in hope.”

“You told me of your family, their deaths. Such things mark us.”

“You’d know something of it.”

“I would.”

He sighs, leans against the pillar. “I am lost,” he admits, his voice shaking. “When we travel, there is silence. When I hunt and kill, there is the void. I am immersed in these things. I am safe within the dark.”

“And in the light?”

“Where is the light?” he asks. “Show me a place in this world touched by light. I can’t see any of it.”

Eirena holds out her hand.

He does not touch her.

“Do you trust me?” she asks.

He says nothing.

“… Daniel?”

He jerks his head up.

“Daniel, do you trust me?”

He reaches out, takes her hand.

“Close your eyes, my friend.”

Her hand is warm. He closes his eyes.

 

* * *

 

He feels warmth surrounding him, not like the heat of Caldeum’s desert sunshine, but warm like a spring day, at the base of the mountains, far away from civilization, but not so far that there is not life.

“Brother!”

He opens his eyes, sits up.

Hallisa is standing before him, smiling. She is young, unspoiled, the child he sometimes sees in his nightmares. “Brother,” she prompts, “what are you doing?”

He watches her. “What are you doing?” he echoes. “What are you doing here?”

She giggles. “You are teasing me.”

“I would never,” he stumbles over his words.

“You would. You always do. It is what brothers do.” She laughs again, innocent and carefree. “Come along. You told me there were wild vegetables by the stream.”

He reaches out his hand, and he sees that it is far older than a boy’s hand, leather wrappings surrounding his fingers. He is a man, recalling a long-dead boy’s memories.

“Hallisa,” he whispers.

Her smile fades. “Brother? Are you all right?”

“I have not seen you in a very long time,” he says.

She frowns at him. “You are behaving strangely.”

“Is this real?”

“Is what real?”

“Are you real?”

His sister touches his face. He feels her warm fingers, sees the innocence in her eyes. “I am real, Daniel. Why are you afraid?”

“I… it is nothing.”

“Did you have the nightmare again?”

“… I have nightmares all the time.”

“Yes, you do.” Hallisa smiles. “Come on, brother. Tell me about it while we walk. You always feel better after you talk to me about your dreams.”

He stands, follows her out the door. There is a vague memory, far, far away, of following this same routine: _waking up, wild vegetables, the gentle chatter of a child’s voice…_

“Brother?”

He looks at Hallisa, her brow furrowed, a child attempting to echo an adult’s concern. Their father wears that same expression often enough, usually when his children return from gathering food, their clothes dirt-smudged, their faces stained with berry juice, teasing and laughing, so carefree and ignorant of the greater world. Their father knows what the world holds – kings, soldiers, wizards, and scholars; learned people believing themselves dominant in a vast world far bigger than themselves.

They are children. Hallisa and her brother. They are children, and they revel in the spring, at the base of the mountain.

He stammers over his words: “Hallisa… I am sorry, what were you saying?”

She pouts. “You were not _listening_.”

“I am sorry. What is your question?”

She sighs dramatically. “You were having nightmares again, brother. In order to make you feel better, we must talk about your dream.” She says the words like the village’s wise woman. He laughs. Hallisa has always been able to make him laugh. She smiles, and he laughs again. He can never remain gloomy with his sister nearby.

Distantly, he recalls a time long separated from this moment, when he will always remember Hallisa as a child, and he will never laugh or smile again.

He shakes the memory away.

“In my dream,” he says, walking beside her, “I… lost you.”

“Was I hiding?”

“No. I lost you. And Mother and Father. You were gone.”

“Did we leave you behind when we went to the shrines?”

“No.”

“Then I must have gone to gather flowers and not told you.”

“No.”

She thinks. “We went to the village festival and chose _not_ to tell you about it.”

He smiles. “That is something you would do.”

“I would never!” she protests, smiling.

“Yes, you would,” he teases, gently echoing her earlier words, “it’s what sisters do.”

She giggles, taking his hand. He is jarred once again by the sight of his leather wrapped fingers, clutched in her small hand. “Come along, brother,” she says. “There are vegetables by the stream. I promised Father we would bring them back.”

He follows her, and for a short while, he forgets.

 

* * *

 

He is absorbed in the task – tear roots from the ground, brush the soil from them, put them into the basket, repeat the process as long as it takes. A butterfly trails by, and Hallisa chases it, giggling, before she drops into the grass beside him, leaning her head on his arm. “Did you see it?” she asks.

He nods, pulls another root.

“Brother?”

“Yes?”

“Do you ever wonder if we’ll ever see anything beyond the valley?”

“What do you mean?”

“I wonder what’s beyond the hills, over the mountains. Do you ever think I’ll get the chance to see?”

He smiles. “One day, little sister, when you are all grown up, you can do whatever you please.”

“What about you, brother?”

“What about me?”

“You will be grown before me. Will you leave before I do?”

He wants to say ‘no,’ but he fears that would be a lie. He hesitates.

“Brother?”

“I… would not want to leave before you do.”

“One day,” she says, staring at the hills, “one day, I would like to see beyond the hills.”

They sit in the grass, by the river, wild vegetables in the basket, the stream bubbling nearby. He looks at the sky, a vibrant blue, wisps of clouds betraying nothing but a spring day, bright and clean and pure, far from civilization, far from any darkness. He smiles faintly, feels his sister beside him.

“Daniel?”

“Hm?”

“What is that?”

He follows her hand, pointing toward a stream of smoke, rising not too far away from their location. He squints, trying to pinpoint the source. It takes seconds – a man’s pristine memory of _that moment_ , and a long-dead boy’s sudden _awareness_ of the same moment – and he knows at the same moment Hallisa whispers:

“The village.”

They leave the basket behind as they run toward home. 

 

* * *

 

 

He hears the sounds before Hallisa does. The man’s memory arises – _protect her from this, do not allow her to know what is happening, keep her eyes and ears from this, do not let her see_ – but the long-dead boy is all he is in this moment. He bows, catches his sister around her waist. “Hallisa, do not look,” he hisses, but she has seen.

She opens her mouth, a wail of terror escaping her.

He looks, though he knows what he will see.

Before them, a monstrous being, as tall as two men, wide, strong, muscles rippling beneath blood-stained flesh, a massive sword strapped to its back, his talon-tipped hands covered in blood and filth. In its hand is a body, a man torn in half, his face still visible to the children wavering in the village gateway. The face is forever frozen in a last scream of terror.

_Father_.

Hallisa’s wail turns into a sob, a shriek of sorrow, coughing and gasping at the sight.

He stares for too long.

It is scarred into his mind, the last image of his father’s face, a good man, a good father, torn to pieces by demons, the stench of hellfire and sulfur pervading the air. All the boy can see is that moment, and all he can hear are his sister’s cries. “Hallisa, hold on,” he commands her, and she retains enough sense to grasp ahold of his neck, to hold onto him, as he runs, fleeing, the creature bellowing to its allies to follow.

He runs faster than he has ever run, runs for safety, for sense, for solace from the nightmare behind him.

The smoke stings his eyes, and he realizes the grassy field is no more. It is burned black by fire and soot, the wild flower ashes all that remains of spring’s bounty. From the corner of his eyes, he sees a basket of wild vegetables, burned into the earth.

He chokes on the smoke, the foul stench of burning flesh and blood all that the wind can carry.

He stumbles, Hallisa screams as he loses his grip, and he falls, dropping to the ground, fully expecting that he will die at this moment. He waits for a demon’s claw to rip into his back, for a blade to slice the flesh of his throat. He locks eyes with his sister, desperate to see she is safe before the end.

It does not come.

Instead, he has fallen in a wooded area, far, far from the village. There are no demons on his heels, they gave up once he entered the wood. He sobs, on his knees, the memory-of-the-moment and the memory-of-the-now rivalling for dominance in his mind.

_I am stronger than this_ , he chastises himself. _I am stronger than this. I am the darkness made whole, and I am what demons fear._

“Hallisa?” he chokes.

She is nearby, sobbing, screaming, and he crawls to her, to offer her comfort, to assure her she is not alone. He is here, he will always be here, he will never leave this place.

_No, I will never leave. This is all I see in my memories, in my darkness._

“Hallisa?” He reaches for her face, and when she looks at him, she is no more. Her beautiful child’s face is pale, her eyes wide, her mouth quivering around body-shaking sobs of terror, and she hugs herself, reeling away from his touch.

“No,” she wails. “no, no, no, no, no.”

He hugs her close as she cries, and he struggles to retain his hold on sanity. He has seen so much in his life, and yet this thing, this memory, it threatens to undo him. He holds her.

_I know you were in Pandemonium, Hallisa. I saw you there. You are safe. I set you free_.

“Hallisa,” he whispers, “I set you _free_ of this.”

Her voice is not entirely hers when she speaks: “ _You_ will never be free of this.”

He looks at his hand, and it is a boy’s hand, no longer a man’s, the memories wavering, crossing back and forth, and he can no longer distinguish between the darkness that consumes his life, and the light he left behind.

 

* * *

 

“Are you all right?”

He opens his eyes, stares, sees a young woman standing before him, a red ribbon in her hair, a bow across her back. She smiles at him, holds out her hand. “I only ask because you were screaming.”

He hesitates.

Her eyes crinkle, amused. “Don’t tell me you forgot me already.”

“Leah,” he exhales.

“You were screaming,” she says again. “I always wondered what you saw in your nightmares. Probably not much different than mine.”

“You are… how are you here?”

“I’m in your memory.” She shrugs. “It’s not so bad, to be remembered. At least here, nothing can hurt me.”

He bows his head. “You should not be here, Leah. My head’s no place for you.”

“Why?”

“You’ve no idea the monsters in my mind.” He swallows. “In my memories.”

“But this is your memory of me,” she says. “I can’t harm me.”

He frowns.

“Besides,” she says, gesturing beside her, “I’m not alone here.”

Hallisa smiles at him, young, innocent, unspoiled.

He gasps.

She surges forward, embraces him.

“Daniel,” she sobs, hugging him tightly. “Daniel, you forgot me.”

His shaking hands grasp her shoulders, holding her close. “I would never,” he whispers.

“You would,” she sniffles. “You _did_.”

He looks over Hallisa’s shoulder at Leah. “I never forgot,” he insists.

“You did,” Leah corrects him, her voice gentle. “You forgot her, you forgot me. You’re too deep in the darkness, hunter. You need to see the light or you’ll go mad.”

“I saw you consumed by darkness,” he says.

“Do you think my soul, my memory, my presence in your life, is gone, just because I’m dead?” Leah crouches, rests her hand on Hallisa’s back. “Is her memory no longer enough to keep you on your path?”

He hugs Hallisa closer to him.

She is small, frail, a child in his arms, the child of his memory, the lost light in his life.

He lifts his head, sees the darkness surrounding the three of them.

Leah looks around. “This is you, hunter,” she says, waving her hand. “This is all you. This consuming darkness. It’s eating you alive.”

“I know no other way,” he says, and his voice breaks. He drops his hands from Hallisa’s back, his head falls forward, his body trembling. “I cannot see another path.”

His breath hitches in his throat. “I saw hope before, Leah, and it is gone. I thought, when I killed Adria, when I killed Malthael, that all of this would end, that the darkness would fade, but the world is tainted, it’s sick with filth and chaos. I hunt it, but it is all I know. Show me the light in this world, because I cannot see it with my own eyes.” He blinks back tears. “I’m blind to it,” he says. “I’m blind to the light.”

“Brother.”

“Hunter.”

He lifts his head, sees the two of them, Hallisa holding Leah’s hand, and Leah’s free hand holding a glimmer of blue magic.

“We’re here,” Leah says. “Hallisa has been here since you were a child; I’ve been here since you met me. We’re not going anywhere. I died, but I am not gone. My mother betrayed me, but I am still here. I live in your memory, and here I am strength, determination, and light.” She wraps her arm around Hallisa’s shoulder. “Your sister is your reason, your hope, your shield. She’s your light, too.”

“We are here, brother,” Hallisa says. “We were taken by the dark, but we exist in spite of it, not because of it.”

“We push the darkness back,” Leah adds.

“We are the light,” they say together.

The blue glow in Leah’s hand grows, and it envelopes them, a crystallized memory of the sister he lost and the friend he gained.

The grief of their combined loss threatens to overwhelm him.

Hallisa wraps her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly; Leah embraces him from behind.

“Grieve,” Hallisa says, “but do not fall victim to the demons of sorrow. They’ll eat you alive, brother. Grieve for me but do not forget me.”

“Remember that I fought to the last,” Leah says. “Don’t ever forget that I fought against my destiny, my fate, to the end. Do not forget that you saw the Heavens, and you defeated Diablo, because of me.” Her voice grows warm; he can hear the smile in her words. “I’d like to think I gave you the strength you needed to defeat the Angel of Death, too, but, let’s take this one victory at a time.”

He chokes on a laugh, a half-forgotten sound, embraces them both, holding tightly to their memories. He lifts his head to see a small spot of light, a flickering candle flame in the darkness.

“We are here,” they say in unison, “and so long as you remember – the good and the bad – your light will never fade, and the darkness will not win.”

“I am nephalem,” he says softly, “the darkness is two steps behind me at every turn. I am what they will fear next, if I am not careful.”

“That is why you have friends,” Leah says, “to keep you grounded.”

He looks at Hallisa. “That is why I have you,” he says.

“Whenever you are lost in the dark,” she says, “remember me. Remember that spring day that gave us our last chance at childhood. Remember all the happiness we shared, the family we were part of. Remember that we were friends, and siblings, and no darkness could ever separate us.”

“I will never forget you again,” he says.

The light engulfs him.

 

* * *

 

He opens his eyes, a soft _hah_ escaping his lips. Eirena sits beside him, his hand clutched in hers, tears staining her cheeks. He is leaning against a crumbling stone wall, his throat dry, his body weary. He groans, raises his free hand to his face, is startled to find his face wet. He pulls his hand away, offers her a questioning look.

“I feared you would not wake,” she says guiltily. “I could not wake you.”

He shakes his head, sitting up straighter. “What,” he croaks, “what happened?”

“I tried to help you dream, of a different time.”

“How long…?”

“All night. It should not have taken that long. An hour, maybe two, but, we have been here all night.” She grimaces. “I thought I could help you. I thought, if I showed you light, it would ease your burden. I fear I did more harm than good.”

He blinks. “Did you see?”

“See what?”

“My memories.”

“I… saw darkness,” she admits. “I saw darkness, and fire. Heat and death.” She bows her head. “I saw no hope.” Her shoulders shake. “I am sorry,” she says, her voice growing thick with tears. “I am so sorry. I should not have tried. I couldn’t do it. I—“

She gasps, startled, when wraps his arms around her, hugging her.

“I saw Hallisa,” he whispers, “and Leah. In my memories.”

“You saw Leah?”

“My lights in the darkness.”

Eirena holds him. He shivers, presses his face against her shoulder, silent sobs finally overcoming him. They remain there for a long while, the enchantress stroking his back, her fingers trailing over the worn fabric of his cloak. They do not speak, and when he finally, gently, pulls away from her, he allows a long exhale of breath, before sitting to face her, his shoulders slightly hunched, absent of the usual tension he carries.

“Leah is still with you,” Eirena says, hopeful at the thought.

“With _us_ ,” he replies, holding out a hand to her.

She looks, sees his bare skin, the glove gone, an instinctual trust in the gesture. She lifts her eyes to meet his face. His smile should be unsettling due to his shadowed nose and eyes, but it is genuine. She takes his hand, squeezing it. “Thank you, Eirena,” he whispers.

They sit in silence, until she asks, “Do you have any other doubts?”

He shrugs. “Only about Lyndon’s infatuation.”

She frowns. “I do not—”

“I still don’t think he will like what he sees.”

“If you continue to make decisions for other people, we will be right back where we started,” she scolds.

“See if I take you with me on another monster hunt with that attitude,” he says.

She gawks, catches the glint in his eyes, and laughs. “I did not think you knew how to laugh,” she teases.

“I have my moments.” He raises a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Your secrets are safe with me.”

“I knew they would be.”

They stand. He works his glove back into place; she brushes the dirt from her skirts.

“Talk to Lyndon,” she tells him.

“I will. Maybe he and I need an adventure.”

“Perhaps you do. Then you can find out for certain what you both see.”

He tilts his head. “You are wise beyond your years, Eirena.”

“I slept for a very long time,” she reminds him. “My master taught me a few things while I dreamed.”

He rolls his shoulders. “Speaking of dreams...”

“Why don’t you sleep near the fire?”

“I prefer high up.”

“No one will disturb you,” she promises him. “Let someone watch over you for once while you rest.”

He looks up at the pillar where he usually rests.

“It is entirely in your hands,” Eirena tells him, and leaves him to his thoughts.

 

* * *

 

Lyndon and Kormac wander into the firepit area where they normally gather with Eirena, and find her sitting by the fire, warming her hands. Lyndon opens his mouth to announce they’ve brought the morning’s breakfast – bread, some cheese, a few sausages, and, oh, tea, the Caldeum stuff, the enchantress’ favorite – and instead receives Kormac’s meaty hand on his shoulder, yanking him to a halt. “What?” Lyndon demands. “What?”

Kormac hushes him, points to Eirena.

Lyndon’s gaze follows, and he gawks at the sight of a man curled up in a great black cloak, sound asleep beside Eirena, his head resting against the top of her thigh. He doesn’t make a sound, his hood pulled low to cover his face, the gentle rise and fall of his chest the only indication he’s breathing at all. Eirena lifts her face, smiles at them both. “Hello,” she greets them.

“What the bloody hell is this?” Lyndon whispers as they creep forward, not wanting to wake their friend.

“He was exhausted,” Eirena says, and that is the end of the conversation.

Kormac sits beside her and tries not to feel a pang of jealousy that it’s not _his_ head resting against her. Instead, he decides to tell her soon how he feels, and hope for the best. He glances at Lyndon, sitting at such an angle that he can just make out the contours of the hunter’s face.

Lyndon catches the templar looking at him, and quickly shifts his face away, the blush of red on his face too much of an admission for this early in this morning. Embarrassed, he dares a glance at the hunter, admires him for a moment, and then begins quietly dividing up the food. Empty bellies don’t keep adventurers going for very long, as he well knows.

Kormac turns his attention to Eirena, looking at the hunter with a fondness the templar has not seen before. “Were you with him all night?” he asks Eirena softly.

“Daniel needed my help,” she says.

“Daniel… oh.” Kormac bows his head. “All this time, I’ve never thought to ask.”

“You still haven’t,” Eirena says. “When he wakes, ask him.” She looks pointedly at Lyndon. “You ask him too.”

Lyndon nods, no quip or glib remark following. He’s returned his attention to the hunter, but there is something unreadable in his face, something Kormac does not know how to identify. Eirena sees it too and decides her friend has had enough prying eyes for one night. She reaches out one hand, draws the hunter’s cowl lower over his face.

He burrows deeper into his cloak, never making a sound.

They sit, three awake, one asleep, enjoying the fire’s warmth, and the quiet gloom of the Westmarch morning air.

“My lady?”

She looks to Kormac. “Yes?”

“May I take your hand?”

She smiles, offer him her free hand. His smile could challenge the sun, despite its courtly restraint. She threads her fingers between his, and thinks she, too, has a few lights in the darkness. She glances at the hunter’s sleeping form, and hopes his dreams are kind to him.

 

_The End_

 


End file.
